1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a liquid crystal display panel and also to a display having a large screen made up of a plurality of liquid crystal display panels.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, a large-sized display for public use is generally made up of incandescent lamps, LEDs, CRTs, LCDs or the like. As the case stands, each of such devices is of a limited size and has a limited display capacity, and a plurality of these devices are generally arrayed either horizontally or vertically or in both directions and are assembled into a large-sized display, thereby facilitating the manufacture or maintenance of the latter.
Because a liquid crystal display is a passive display, it has the advantage of being easy to view even under the environmental conditions in which it receives relatively strong external light, and also has the advantage of being inexpensive.
Japanese laid-open patent publication (unexamined) No. 60-247684 discloses a display having a large screen made up of a plurality of horizontally and vertically arrayed display panels. Each of the display panels comprises a pair of opposed glass or plastic substrates, two sets of opposed transparent electrodes formed on inner surfaces of the paired substrates, respectively, and a liquid crystal sandwiched between the substrates. The periphery of the display panel is hermetically sealed by a resin material, which also serves as a spacer. Because each of the transparent electrodes formed on the substrates has a terminal to be connected to an external driving circuit, the sealing material is printed several millimeters inwardly from edges of the substrates.
Because a display region is a liquid crystal area sandwiched between the opposed transparent electrodes, the sealing portion and the electrode terminals extend outwardly beyond the display region. The panel is generally assembled by bonding the two substrates to each other after the sealing material has been printed on one of the substrates. During bonding, the sealing resin is broadened to about 2 millimeters. For this reason or in anticipation of marginal areas during printing, the sealing portion extends about 4 millimeters outwardly from the display region on one side thereof. In further consideration of the length of the electrode terminals, the panel becomes, as a whole, image than the display region by 1 centimeter or more.
This panel is connected to a driving circuit on a printed-circuit board and is rigidified by a frame. In this way, the manufacture of a display is completed. Because a large-sized screen is generally made up of a plurality of vertically and horizontally arrayed display panels, adjoining panels are inevitably spaced a certain distance from each other, and hence, the problem arises that the screen, as a whole, cannot provide a continuous image and provides an image in broken style.
In the aforementioned publication, the spacing between two adjoining panels is narrowed by placing electrode terminals of one panel above those of the other. It is, however, practically impossible to obtain a spacing of zero.
Japanese laid-open patent publication (unexamined) No. 61-118789 discloses a lighting fixture having a trigonal prism interposed between a liquid crystal and a light source. In this publication, joints between adjoining panels are made inconspicuous by obliquely introducing light from the light source to the display region. In this case, although the joints are not so conspicuous, the prism is costly.